One Billion is a Lot

What would I do with one billion dollars? The possibilities are endless. If only I'd had the foresight to invent a product like Guitar Hero.

That's how much money they've made on the sale of the product itself. It does not include the vast revenue garnered from downloadable content. This is a hulking beast of a thing now. It will be exploited to the darkest point of no return, and its iterations will exist, in some form, for many years, I suspect.

Of course, I love the series. It is as close perhaps as I'll ever get to an actual guitar without ever really coming anywhere close to being one. It's fun to play, that's all there is to say about it. But how did a game where a 3/4 size plastic guitar controller become mainstream? How did it become wildly popular? I remember when the first Guitar Hero came out, it was incredible fun. It brought the sort of joy to the home game console that I hadn't felt since the old days. It was arcade-like almost, but one felt the urge to rock the fuck out. I always felt it was a niche product, partially because of the price, but also because you look stupid when you play it. There's no getting around it, it's hard to look cool with a tiny little guitar controller that has buttons representing all of the primary colors.

Now it's a hulking juggernaut in the game industry. The competition is fierce, with Rock Band in tow (or perhaps in the lead?). It will be interesting to see where we go from here. Do we get more instruments and updates via Xbox Live for Rock Band, or will we get nickeled and dimed? They already know they can charge us anything for the downloads, because people will still pay for them, regardless of the price. It's that point system, furiously insisting that a few more points aren't going to hurt your bank statement at the end of the month. It's also the offerings. There are some great tracks out for Rock Band. The Police? Queens of the Stone Age? Yes. I'll take it.

<---- Has contributed over 300 of his hard earned dollars to the Guitar Hero franchise.